River of Amber
by yorozuyagaren
Summary: Chihiro and some friends go exploring in the woods one day, and stumble upon the old theme park. They find that Haku has been held captive by Yubaba, and Chihiro must join forces with new friends and old if she wants to save him for good.
1. Chapter 1: The Illfated Party

A/N: I wrote the poem in the beginning. Me, no one else. Read and enjoy, peopleses.

* * *

River of Amber 

Chapter 1: The Ill-fated Party

"River of amber, wash away my tears  
Bring back my love to me  
For he was a fisherman  
Who drowned in your waves  
And was washed out to sea  
River of amber, please."

Chihiro hummed the chorus to the song she'd written the day before as she tidied up the living room for the party on the day to come. The song was inspired a combination of old folk songs about drowned fishermen and by the memory of a strange series of events that had happened nearly a month before, on the day that she and her family had moved to their new home.

"Oh, Haku," she murmured after singing another verse. "I wonder what happened to you."

* * *

"_HOW DARE YOU!" Yubaba cries, sending a barrage of random objects toward the upright figure in the center of the room. He doesn't even flinch as a vase explodes in the air in front of his face, sending shards of pottery flying. A line of red appears on his cheek, but he doesn't appear to notice._

"_I'm no longer in your power, Yubaba," the boy states calmly._

"_I have your name! You're Haku, you hear me? HAKU!"_

_The boy's face twists into a smile, clearly not an expression that it is used to. "No longer," he says. "My name is Nigihayami Kohaku-Nushi. As it always was."_

_Yubaba appears to grow bigger, her hair coming out of its bun and fanning out menacingly around her face. The boy still does not move._

"_You may have your name back," she threatens. "But I can still control your body." She grabs a bell from the shambles of her desk and rings it. As if from nowhere, dark shapes appear around the boy, binding his hands and feet. He falls to the ground.As he flickers in and out of consciousness, he hears Yubaba's voice grating on his sensetive ears, cursing him and someone named Sen._

_Who is Sen? he wonders. Then the world fades to black.

* * *

_

The party was a disaster. Chihiro had been planning on having everyone watch a movie, right up until the VCR went on the fritz and ate the tape. The snacks had been ruined by a jealous cat named Puki, and Chihiro and her guests found themselves sitting around in the living room with nothing to do.

"Hey, why don't we go exploring in the woods?" Hitomi asked. Her idea was greeted with enthusiasm from every quarter except for that of the hostess.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Chihiro began, but no one seemed to be listening. The other girls put on their shoes and headed for the side yard of Chihiro's house, which bordered on the woods.

It wasn't long before the four of them were completely lost.

"Chihiro, I'm hungry," Hitomi whined.

Rumiko swatted at the back of Hitomi's head. "It was your stupid idea to go exploring, genius."

"Guys, calm down," Chihiro insisted, shoving her way between the two quarreling girls. "Let's think about this logically."

"How will that help?" Riei demanded.

"Well," Chihiro began. "I think I know a way to get home from here. It'll take a while, but we'll get there."

"By all means, 'Hiro, lead on," Rumiko stated, using her personal nickname for her friend. Chihiro nodded and led the way through the underbrush. After only a few minutes, they had reached a dirt road.

"Wow, I never knew this road was here," Hitomi said. She started off uphill.

"No, we have to go this way," Chihiro said, pointing downhill, towards where she knew the main road to be.

"Oh come on, Chihiro," said Riei. "We were going exploring, weren't we?"

"Besides, I don't want to go home yet," Rumiko stated. "Home's boring. This road looks interesting."

Chihiro was relegated to the rear of the party as Hitomi lead the way up the hill.

"Wow," came Hitomi's voice from up ahead. Chihiro buried her face in her hands. She knew very well what Hitomi was marveling at. A large red wall with a tunnel cut through it, all of it plaster painted to look like stone.

"Guys, I really think we should go home now!" she said, grabbing Rumiko's shoulder. Rumiko shrugged her off.

"You're such a spoilsport, 'Hiro."

Chihiro had no choice other than to follow as the three in front of her entered the tunnel.


	2. Chapter 2: The Reappearance

Thank you for the lovely reviews, and thank you cgflower for giving me the incentive to write this chapter as fast as I could. Everyone say thank you to cgflower! As for the title of this chapter. This chapter is both the reappearance of Haku, and also the reappearance of Chihiro in the spirit world. It is intentionally ambiguous.

* * *

River of Amber 

Chapter 2: The Reappearance

_I wonder why it is that I'm the only human who doesn't want to go through here_, Chihiro thought to herself. The tunnel and train station were exactly as she'd remembered them, only now there were three other girls shouting and exclaiming over everything. Chihiro followed them in a daze, trying to think of some way to get them to turn back. The sun would be setting soon.

A few minutes after entering the town, Chihiro realized that she couldn't hear her friends' voices any more.

"Rumiko! Hitomi! _Riei!_" she called. No reply. She sniffed the air. No tempting scent of enchanted food, so they couldn't have turned into pigs.

Unless they were already pigs and the food had disappeared.

Chihiro fought the panic rising in her chest as she tried to think logically where the three girls could be. Maybe they'd gone exploring. That had been the original plan, after all. Chihiro could see the smoke beginning to rise from the bathhouse. Maybe they'd gone there.

"I hope they didn't get turned into pigs," she said aloud. "Riei's my best friend." Shadows began to appear in the restaurants as the sun slowly sank to the horizon.

Suddenly Chihiro felt something grab her shoulders. "Boo!" someone shouted. The victim jumped at least a foot and spun around. Riei stood in front of her, grinning.

"Chihiro, you're so jumpy," Riei said. "What's wrong?"

"W-where—?"

"Where are the others? They went into the bathhouse. We couldn't find you, so we figured I should stay behind in case you showed up."

"The _bathhouse?_"

Riei giggled. "You know, the big red building over there."

Chihiro nodded slowly.

"Some kid came out and said that we were welcome to come in, but we had to sign a contract saying that we wouldn't cause trouble. At least, that's what he said it said, because whoever wrote the contract—cuz it was handwritten—had really horrible handwriting, and we couldn't read it at all. I didn't sign mine yet, cuz I wanted to wait for you, but Hitomi and Rumiko signed theirs, and the kanji of their names sort of shifted around on the paper and some of the characters floated up into the sky! It was really freaky! Then they followed the kid inside, and I stood here waiting for you." Riei looked thoughtful for a moment. "They looked different after the characters disappeared. Almost like they were sick or something."

Chihiro shut her eyes tightly, then opened them, hoping that everything would disappear and she'd be in her room, but it didn't work.

"I think _I'm_ going to be sick," she said. "Wait a second, you said that a kid met you out here? What did he look like?"

Riei smiled. "He was really cute, in a strange, old fashioned kind of way. His hair and eyes were green, and he was wearing these really weird clothes, like you see in old paintings from the Heian period."

_Haku!_ Chihiro thought. _But I thought I freed him by giving back his name._

"Chihiro, are you okay?" Riei asked, concerned. "Who's Haku?" Chihiro blushed. She hadn't realized that she'd said his name aloud.

"Someone I met—a long time ago," she said evasively.

Riei raised an eyebrow. "Might he be—a romantic interest?"

"N-no!" Chihiro stuttered. "He's just a friend! Besides, Hitomi and Rumiko are in trouble. We have to go help them."

Riei nodded, a knowing smile on her face. "So, how do we get in? That weird kid—Hachu or whatever his name is—isn't here."

"First rule of this world," Chihiro began. "Is never, ever sign anything. Yubaba, she's a witch who runs the bathhouse, she steals your name by making you sign a contract."

"Chihiro, you _do_ know that witches aren't real, right?"

"They are here. See, this place isn't in the real world where school and parents are. It's in the spirit world, and it's a very dangerous place for humans. We need to save Hitomi and Rumiko, and get out of here."

"But what about Hachu?"

"Him too. And his name's Haku, not Hachu."

"Whatever," Riei said with a dismissive wave. "So, how do we get in without signing one of those contracts?"

"I'm not sure. But I'll think of something." Chihiro thought. "We'll have to hide our scents. Spirits have very good noses, and humans smell bad to them."

"So, what, we'll have to try to smell good?"

Chihiro smiled as a thought came to her. "No, we'll have to smell worse."


	3. Chapter 3: The Dirt of the Matter

Probably one of my fastest updates ever. It doubles as a reason not to be taking part in the "festivities" downstairs. Enjoy, and may your holidays be better than mine.

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River of Amber 

Chapter 3:

"Chihiro, this is probably the single _worst_ idea you've ever come up with," Riei moaned, holding her nose.

"It's the only way to get in," Chihiro said simply. She grabbed a handful of rotting vegetable scraps and pig dung, grimaced, and rubbed into her hair. "Besides, we're sneaking into a _bathhouse_. I'm sure we'll be able to get clean once we're inside."

Riei eyed the foul-smelling pile dubiously. "But—"

"No buts," Chihiro insisted, rubbing more of the mess into her clothes. "You want to help Hitomi and Rumiko, right?"

"Can't they get themselves out?"

"No, they can't. At this point, they probably don't even remember being in the human world, much less their real names. And they can't get out unless they remember their names."

"That's silly, though! How can someone forget their own name?"

Chihiro set down the large chunk of dung she'd been holding and regarded her friend. "Yubaba steals your name by making you sign a contract. That's how she controls people. Once you lose your name, you lose your memories with it, and eventually you lose yourself and become another one of her minions. That's what almost happened to me."

Meanwhile, Riei's eyes had been opening wider with each word. By the end of Chihiro's short speech, they were roughly the size of dinner plates.

"I'm scared," she whispered.

"Me too," Chihiro said, patting her on the back and leaving a large brown mark. "You have to pretend that you aren't though. It helps, it really does. Do you want some help getting this stuff on?" Riei shook her head and grabbed the chunk of dung that Chihiro had dropped. Looking like she was about to cry, she smeared it down the front of her shirt.

"Good girl, Riei. We can do this."

* * *

_"Very good, Haku," Yubaba says with a smile. Once again, the boy stands in the center of the room, shadows surrounding his slight figure. His face is expressionless. "Not only have you brought me three new human servants, you've also brought Sen back. I can only wonder why I never thought of this before."_

_The boy's face contorts, as if he is trying to say something but couldn't get the words out._

_"Oh, I'm sorry," says Yubaba mockingly. "Did I forget to tell you that this spell forbids you to speak ill of me? And only by using your power to curse me can you lift it. A piece of genius, to be sure. I'm rather proud of it."_

_A loud wail is heard from the next room. Yubaba pales, then rushes off to take care of her child's latest tantrum. Three disembodied green heads bounce over to the boy._

_"Hrp," one of them announces. _You'll never escape this time,_ it seems to say. _Sen will hate you for what you've done to her friends._ The boy attempts to kick the head, but his knees buckle under. "Hrp, hrp, hrp—"

* * *

_

The sun was barely visible as Chihiro and Riei crossed the bridge leading to the bathhouse, both smelling strongly of kitchen waste and pig droppings. Spirits avoided them as they passed, holding their various olofactory organs, seemingly unaware of the fact that the two small figures were humans and not the stink spirits they appeared to be.

The second they were over the bridge, Chihiro grabbed Riei's shoulder and pulled her through a door. The door opened onto a narrow balcony at the top of a flight of rickety wooden steps.

"No way," Riei said, looking down the stairs to the missing step about half-way down. "We are not going down that."

"Yes, we are," Chihiro told her. "We have to get some food before we disappear, and this is the only way to get to the boiler room."

"Disappear?" Riei looked down at herself. The wooden platform was beginning to show through her feet. She screamed. Chihiro clamped a hand over the other girl's mouth, stifling the noise.

"Shh!" she told her friend sternly. "It's because we don't belong here. We have to eat something of this world, or we'll disappear completely."

"And there's food in the boiler room?" Riei asked.

"I have a friend there, his name is Kamaji. He helped me the last time I was here."

"This is insane!"

Chihiro nodded. "Don't worry. If Kamaji doesn't have any food to give us, he can get Rin, and Rin will have food."

Riei looked down at the steps uneasily. "Do we have to?" she asked.

Chihiro nodded again. "I'll go first to make sure it's safe."


End file.
